I’ll be tamarisks
below sandstone cliffs
a pool of deep clear water
transparent to the bottom

I’ll be cougar
climbing rimrock
hundreds of feet high
over a gliding rill

I’ll be a broken place
a fissure where driftwood
bobcat or child
can curl and rest

I’ll be water hurtling down a dry bed of sand
wave following wave
plunging, tumbling
into flood

I’ll be gorge sculpted by water and time
grand arches flaring red
reflected in quiet water
I’ll be steps to steep summit
carved into rock

I’ll be reverberations between cliffs
echoing wall to wall
I’ll be crags and curved terraces
shadow-filled; rococo silhouettes carved
in beige and mauve, purple and umber

I’ll be canyon cathedrals
domes and pinnacles
jubilation of sun, rain and wind
in thrall to streams pelting swift
a thousand feet below
at the heart of it all

—

Jane Lipman’s chapbooks, The Rapture of Tulips and White Crow’s Secret Life, Pudding House Publications, were finalists for New Mexico Book Awards in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Her poems have appeared in Runes, Santa Fe Literary Review, Sin Fronteras, New Mexico Poetry Review, Adobe Walls, and are forthcoming in Malpais Review.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

Published by Lisa M. Hase-Jackson

Lisa M. Hase-Jackson, MA, MFA, is a Writing Coach and Teacher. She is the editor of Zingara Poetry Review and 200 New Mexico Poems. She has developed and facilitated poetry writing workshops and circles all over the world and her poetry has appeared in such literary magazines as Inscape, Susquehanna Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Subscribe, Blue Ships, Kansas City Voices, and Sugar Mule.
View all posts by Lisa M. Hase-Jackson

Post navigation

7 thoughts on “#47 Next Time by Jane Lipman”

I’ll be rich, melifluous sounds cascading
leaping, merging, dissolving into symphonies
observing, praising, affecting, being nature
and all that senses can perceive and share.
I’ll be Jane…just for an instant…inspired

Stunning work, Jane. I’m swooning. Your beautiful poem takes me right into the magic. It also reflects what my painting is about and then beyond! Thank you. I think we need to work on a collaboration. My paintings, your poetry… Take a look at the cougar in grand canyon painting on my website brendahowellart.com
Brenda

Having spent the winter looking north to San Ildefonso and some days, being able to see all the way to the Colorado mountains and having to give this back , to return to northeastern woods, your poem helps me take all this New Mexico glory of space and light with me, to make the transition. Thank you Jane.